Whilst I don't want to obsess too much about Google PageRank I just wondered how quickly PR is/can be assigned to a new site? Today I saw a new site launch and the toolbar PR went from 0 to 4 within a couple of hours, I kid you not! I know there were a number of links to the URL prior to the site going live but I've never seen such a high PR achieved in such a short space of time. Seeing as the last PR update was a few weeks ago this seems pretty odd. Anyone else seen toolbar PR achieved so high and so quickly?
PR0 to PR4 in couple hours? It's impossible unless the site get strong link from high PR blogs or site, such as News site, authority site and so on. Did he?
I was just as amazed myself - I've been in the SEO game quite a while and had I not seen it with my own eyes I'd have thought it impossible too. Having a quick look at the IBLs there's nothing major in there IMHO to deserve the target site a PR4. Add: I'm just wondering how old the links are to the site, they'd had this in the pipeline for a good 3 months...
You might need to check the PR of your site with other PR checker site as well to confirm it, because toolbar sometimes shows weird PR value for a newly launched site, of which is still yet to be indexed by Google.
Give the new site a day or two and you would see the PR make a disappearing act! It is common for 'just bought' domain name to reflect the PR of its earlier existence. The new site would have its own PR only at the time of next major PR update. Regards, RightMan
its good that google not stict to pr update, its update pr as and when find enough no of quality links
Hi all, thanks for the responses. The domain is a year old and the site was being built over the last 3 months. The URL has pointed at another URL for some time but was "cut loose" just prior to launch of the dedicated site at the domain. There was no site at the URL until yesterday afternoon and not even a holding page although a number of links (40+) were pointing to the URL. Only one of these is a PR5 the rest PR0. I was anticipating the site going live at the time designated and toolbar PR was definitely zero as the site was late in launching. When the site finally launched the toolbar PR was zero until a couple of hours later I checked back and it was PR4. You can understand my surprise at this. I've checked using other PR checker tools (including DP (kw+backlink)/PR tracker) and using other machines with fresh views of the site - And yes it's still a PR4 within 24 hours of launch. The site that the URL was previously pointed to also has and retains its own PR4 for now. I'll keep an eye on this and keep you informed of any updates but I don't expect much to change.
This is an interesting topic, Domain must be an old one. Anyway i'm awaiting your new researches here. Good topic to discuss.
You are correct The solution for OP question, assuming it isn't the problem of checking with the Google toolbar plus cookie problem I would guess it due to fake PR. The site domain probably gained a fake PR from redirection. There is no way a site can gain normal PR in a few hours eventhough if BarrackObama.com is linking to it directly. Cheers
PageRank is assigned just after the period of higher than normal crawl rate activity from Googlebot and these seem to happen at approximately quarterly intervals. The last PR update was at the beginning of April and whilst the domain seems to have been around since before this time (albeit redirected to another sister site) and effectively gaining links to a non-existent site the PR for the standalone domain was definitely 0 to start with and 4 within just a few hours of launch. DP PR tracker had it as PR4 (Google SOAP query) in today's check too!